So, I’ve been gone awhile and unfortunately my camponotus chromaiodes queen has had a rough one for this year but that’s another story. So long story short I decided to get another colony, I got a colony of C. Barbaricus and a gift of L. Niger. I received them in the both yesterday and fed them both some honey. The C. B. colony has 3 workers and no brood and the L. N. colony has 16 workers and a nice pile of brood. They both readily took the honey it’s was actually quite funny. The only thing I’m worried about is hibernation and it’s almost December.. The L. N. Colony has started to huddle together but the C.B has just been as active as ever. The temp in my dads house right now is set to 67. But when I get back to my moms tonight I’ll be able to put them in a fridge or in a colder room where I can monitor temps. What if they don’t hibernate? Is I️t optional? Do they both have an exogenic rhythm?

Camponotus barbaricus can be active into December, I checked the temps in Andalusia and it's getting cold there at early to mid December (cold means 15°C during the day and 5-10°C during the night, remember that's close to Gibraltar which is almost northern Africa).You can keep the C. barbaricus at room temperature they don't really hibernate anyway, they are just very inactive. I've kept mine at room temp (~20°C) last year and they just mostly sat in their tube doing nothing until March. It's possible that you queen might still lay a batch of eggs (mine did around mid November last year) but they won't realyy develop to more than tiny larvae.

Well I’m in Charlotte NC and my house i heated to about 67 my mom likes I️t cold. Will they need any honey or anything ? And the test tube that they came in is super small so I’m scared that they will run out of water should i upgrade them and force them to move or just wait till it’s dyer? Both them and Lasius Niger...

You can relocate them to a larger tube (30x200mm worked well for my C. barbaricus) - just wrap a piece of paper around the large tube, then stick the smaller tube into the large tube. They should walk straight into the darkened larger tube (they really don't like light). Once they all left the small tube you can remove that.

The Lasius niger might be more of an issue, they really don't like to move. You can just put the smaller tube into a larger tube (with the opening of the small tube facing towards the cotton of the larger tube but some space in between so the ants can move around it) and leave it at that. That should sufficient for hibernation.

Serafine wrote:You can relocate them to a larger tube (30x200mm worked well for my C. barbaricus) - just wrap a piece of paper around the large tube, then stick the smaller tube into the large tube. They should walk straight into the darkened larger tube (they really don't like light). Once they all left the small tube you can remove that.

The Lasius niger might be more of an issue, they really don't like to move. You can just put the smaller tube into a larger tube (with the opening of the small tube facing towards the cotton of the larger tube but some space in between so the ants can move around it) and leave it at that. That should sufficient for hibernation.

Serafine wrote:You can relocate them to a larger tube (30x200mm worked well for my C. barbaricus) - just wrap a piece of paper around the large tube, then stick the smaller tube into the large tube. They should walk straight into the darkened larger tube (they really don't like light). Once they all left the small tube you can remove that.

The Lasius niger might be more of an issue, they really don't like to move. You can just put the smaller tube into a larger tube (with the opening of the small tube facing towards the cotton of the larger tube but some space in between so the ants can move around it) and leave it at that. That should sufficient for hibernation.

Well since they’re super active still, can I feed them a super small Dubia before they hibernate? The Barbaricus has 3 workers and the L. Niger has like 16 workers.

Serafine wrote:You can relocate them to a larger tube (30x200mm worked well for my C. barbaricus) - just wrap a piece of paper around the large tube, then stick the smaller tube into the large tube. They should walk straight into the darkened larger tube (they really don't like light). Once they all left the small tube you can remove that.

The Lasius niger might be more of an issue, they really don't like to move. You can just put the smaller tube into a larger tube (with the opening of the small tube facing towards the cotton of the larger tube but some space in between so the ants can move around it) and leave it at that. That should sufficient for hibernation.

Well since they’re super active still, can I feed them a super small Dubia before they hibernate? The Barbaricus has 3 workers and the L. Niger has like 16 workers.

Serafine wrote:Of course you can (and should) still feed them when they're still active.

I tried Dubias and my Campos didn't like them (the Lasius probably eat anything) but you might have more luck - I think I spoiled mine by feeding them so much bee brood.

Okay, hopefully they take them, I️ breed Dubia’s for my bearded dragons so hopefully they do because less money in food and more on a formicarium I️m thinking about AC OmniNest Vertical Large for both species eventually... but hopefully by Christmas I’ll have at least one to block off the floors for the Campos. And I’ll keep the Lasius Niger in maybe a THA nest.. At least until I get another AC nest..